A month after the infamous Fugitive Slave Act was passed by Congress, Rev. Jermain Wesley Loguen (1813-1872), a fugitive slave from Tennessee, persuaded his adopted hometown, Syracuse, New York, to declare that city a refuge for liberated slaves. On October 4, 1850, the people of Syracuse filled city hall to hear a discussion of the recently passed law. Samuel Ringgold Ward, a well known minister and anti-slavery activist, spoke in opposition to the Act. Ward was followed by Rev. Loguen (1813-1872). Like Ward who was also a fugitive slave, Loguen knew first hand the horrors of the institution and the immediate danger he faced by the passage of the new Act. He appealed to his fellow citizens to honor the Constitution by dishonoring the law that would reenslave him and others. He argued that his continued freedom depended upon the willingness of his white fellow citizens to resist the law and protect him if he were threatened. Following his plea that Syracuse be made an open city for fugitive slaves, the meeting voted 395 to 96 in favor of his proposal. Loguen later became a Bishop of the African Methodist Episcopal Church. His speech appears below:

I WAS A SLAVE; I knew the dangers I was exposed to. I had made up my mind as to the course I was to take. On that score I needed no counsel, nor did the colored citizens generally. They had taken their stand—they would not be taken back to slavery. If to shoot down their assailants should forfeit their lives, such result was the least of the evil. They will have their liberties or die in their defense. What is life to me if I am to be a slave in Tennessee? My neighbors! I have lived with you many years, and you know me. My home is here, and my children were born here. I am bound to Syracuse by pecuniary interests, and social and family bonds. And do you think I can be taken away from you and from my wife and children, and be a slave in Tennessee? Has the President and his Secretary sent this enactment up here, to you, Mr. Chairman, to enforce on me in Syracuse?—and